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Researcher and informant roles in narrative interactions: Constructions of belonging and foreign-ness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2011

Anna De Fina
Anna De Fina
Affiliation:
Italian Department, ICC 307 J, Georgetown University, 37 and O Streets NW, Washington, DC 20057, USAdefinaa@georgetown.edu
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Abstract

In this article I focus on the influence of researcher/informant roles on the types of narratives that are produced and on the ways in which storytelling interactions are managed in research contexts. In particular, I show that storytelling activities and story types both reflect and shape relationships among participants based, among other factors, on their local management of situational and portable identities. I argue that one important methodological consequence of the analysis is the recognition of the fact that all data produced in interaction (including interviews) are irreducibly context-bound and that therefore an analytical separation between observer and observed is impossible. I also discuss how a treatment of the research event and of storytelling in it as a real interactional encounter can shed light on issues related to the insider-outsider status of the researcher and the Observer's Paradox (Labov 1972b). (Narrative, interviews, interactional roles, immigrants, identities).

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 40 , Special Issue 1: Narratives in interviews, Interviews in narrative studies , February 2011 , pp. 27 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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